Our Story
Our journey to Arizona wine country began years ago, when Tim made dandelion wine during high school. Then he married the nature-loving and adventuresome Joan. After college we headed west to San Francisco, making frequent trips to what was then the young pioneering wine country of Napa Valley. Next came 25 years of busy professional life and raising our two children in Arizona and then Rhode Island. Still, wherever we traveled we visited local small wineries and talked with the owners, and all the while Tim was making wine in our basement.
In 2003, in a huge leap of faith, we returned to the West to start our own vineyard and winery in Sonoita. Winemaker Tim left his academic job at Brown University for the chance to devote himself to the art and science of wine making. Joan retired from her successful counseling practice, and now works harder than ever as the business manager and farmer. Daughter Kathryn is our director of marketing, and our son Ian and his wife Rhian contribute design expertise and manual labor.
We have now planted 6 and 1/2 acres of grapes with the help of our children and many friends. Our dream of opening a winery was finally realized in 2007 when we opened our tasting room and began to sell our first releases.
Our wines our winning awards, and we're proud to be producing fine wines from 100% Arizona-grown fruit and educating our visitors about Arizona wine.
Meet Us
Joan is the business manager and farmer of Canelo Hills. She left a successful private practice in mental health counseling to tend to the needs of our grapes and to run the tasting room. She is happy to have traded a regular work schedule for the constant but rewarding work of running a family farm.
Tim makes our fantastic wines. A Harvard and Stanford educated doctor, he enjoys turning his scientist's mind to the art of wine making. Luckily he likes to be busy, since he does the wine making and handyman work when he's free from his full-time position as a psychiatrist at the VA Hospital in Tucson.
Kathryn is our Marketing Director and maintains our website. She balances her winery work with a busy career as a classical singer, and often drafts newsletters while on the road to places like Boston, Santa Fe and Miami.